These vultures, these excuses for relatives accost me wherever I happen to beMinding my own business in a corner,At awkward dinner parties,Avoiding pointed questions about my childlessness,Praying for the whole farce to end.

They look at my bodyCraning their long necks this way and thatThey examine and decry the defiant arch of my spineClucking at the offensive roundness of my hips,They declare I must not care to dietRattling off confidently foods I must be eating to all and sundryThings that I must wolf down like an animal: Instant noodles, junk food, countless fried indulgences that fold themselves into every nook and cranny of my dresses until I can't breatheThe disdain drips from their accusations like the reused oilFrom the mamaks and char kuay teow uncles they accuse me of patronising dailyInstead of my home, where I craft my wholesome meals from scratch,Pretty on my plates and even prettier on my Instagrams.

The vultures do not know nor careThat every day after school since I was 10, I sat on the floor of my room in my unbuckled pinaforeFeverishly looking through my mother's Women's Weekly magazinesLearning about terms and ideas I shouldn't have to learn at that age, likeLow Glycemic Index foodsThe Atkins dietCarbohydrates to never eatPortion controlSaturated fatI discovered breakfast is the most important meal to skipAnd learnt to count calories with everything I ate.Each meal I skipped was a prayerIf I told myself enough times I wasn't hungry, the mantra would morph into the truthI was a desperate supplicantPleading to the shrine of my wrong, unyielding bodyTo unravel all of meAnd make me look just like any other girlBut it demanded sacrifices.

By the time I entered high school,I had it all memorisedWater and eggs for breakfast were136 caloriesI began to only buy a packet of guava at recess1 ringgit, 100 grams, 68 caloriesLying easily about being too full for lunchI later made a show of eating dinnerBecause rice with dishes was a whopping 1235 calories.I would leave the house to throw up outsideBefore going back upstairs as though nothing happenedAs though my throat wasn't scraped rawAs though my eyes weren't bloodshot redAs though my stomach wasn't a black hole of unforgiving hunger Howling at me as I just looked at myself in the mirrorThe cloying shame eating my brittle, broken heart becauseI would never be thinNever be thinNever beNever.

I would discover years laterIn the ultrascanthe cysts – a string of pearls on my ovariesThat have suffocated and strangled me sinceThe unwelcome red on my sheets that marked the beginning of the loss of my childhoodWhen my passions and smartsMy talents and artMeant nothing if I wasn't prettyAnd couldn't fit into size 6 jeansWhen everyone else just could.

Polycystic Ovary DisorderThose 3 words, spilling so casually from my doctor's lipsUnleashed the floodgates of my emotionsI screamed and I raged,in twin rivers of disbelief and bitternessIt gave me the acid truthThe stark reason why I would put on 8 kgs in a monthDespite obsessive visits to the gym and a too-healthy lifestyleIt explained why a menstrual cycle would drag me on a roller coaster for 3 monthsIt revealed my turbulent hormone levels and the ravaged temple of my bodyThat had long since stopped listening to my desperate prayersBecause I had laid waste to its shrines under siegeDefaced and devastated everythingHating and killing myself so deep insideUntil all that I had left wasA string of pearlsAt the foot of the ruins

Through the years the vultures titteredBile spewing from their pursed lipsWith standard issue statements such as 'It's for your own good', and'Adults know best' and'We say these things because we care about you.'

How dare youHow can you live with yourselfAnd say, with a straight faceThat your cruel assumptions and rotten wordsCome from a place of love and kindness?You don't care at all Who I amWho I've beenOr who I will become.The only stories you want to hearAre the ones you're making up about me right nowBecause you love the sound of your own voiceThey are malicious, spiteful and untrueJust like youWith friends and family like youWho needs enemies?This is why you are vulturesBullies who can only hunt the isolated and the weakWaiting for nothing else in your life but the next chanceTo feed on a carcassI would feel sorry for youBut you've done nothing to earn it from me.